


Can't You Hear That Wind Howl?

by asimaiyat



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Creepy, Demon!Ray, Discord: Flarrowverse Shipyard, Dubcon Aspects, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Id!fic, Identity Horror, M/M, Manipulation, Pining, Seduction, Temporary Character Death, ambiguous ending, demons and hell, discord made me do it, episode: Egg MacGuffin, episode: Nip/Stuck, nate is very soft when he isn't literally made of steel, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 08:12:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18774718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asimaiyat/pseuds/asimaiyat
Summary: When the Legends manage to trap the demon wearing Ray's face in the holding cell, Nate knows he should stay away. Too bad he can never resist Ray's smile.





	Can't You Hear That Wind Howl?

**Author's Note:**

> I blame the Flarrowverse Shipyard server for enabling this. Title from "Come On In My Kitchen" by Robert Johnson. The creepiness and dubcon here is mild-to-moderate IMO, feel free to ask me any questions before reading.

_Can’t you hear that wind howl?_  
_Yeah, can’t you hear that wild wind howl?_  
_You better come on in my kitchen_  
_‘Cause it’s gonna be rainin’ outdoors_

“Ah, the good ol’ Hall o’ Shame,” Rory grunted as Sara slammed the door on the Waverider’s holding cell and set the digital lock. Raymond -- no, that wasn’t Raymond -- gave a little shrug from where he stood in the middle of the cell, looking at worst mildly inconvenienced by the situation. Sara just sighed and rolled her bare shoulders before turning her back and striding toward the bridge, and Rory followed a couple of paces back, but Nate felt like his feet were bolted to the floor. Looking at Ray-- at Neron -- felt about as bad as not looking did, so it was pretty awkward to just stand there, and yet. 

Rory stopped mid-stride and looked over his shoulder, fixing Nate with a stony glare. “Come on, Pretty. We got work to do,” he said, which was pretty transparent because nobody did less work on the ship than Mick, until it was time to punch things and carry people to safety. 

“Yeah, I’ll be on the bridge in a minute,” Nate replied. 

The furrow between Rory’s brows deepened as he held Nate’s gaze. “Don’t be an idiot,” he growled as he turned back down the hallway and walked away. Nate just stood there, definitely feeling like an idiot.

“He’s right,” said Ray’s voice. Nate looked up from counting tiles on the floor to see him approaching the glass from the inside, smiling slightly. “You are pretty.”

“Shut up,” said Nate, like he wasn’t the absolute dumbass who’d decided to stand here and torture himself. “Whatever you’re trying to do, it isn’t going to work.”

There was a pause, and then. “He wanted you, you know,” that same voice said, like the way Ray’s voice would have sounded if he was remarking on a common misconception about the periodic table.

“Who? Mick?” Nate asked when the words themselves caught up with him. 

Raymond laughed -- or, the demon laughed, but he used Raymond’s laugh to do it. “No, goody-two-shoes here,” he said, gesturing to Raymond’s body with a sweep of one hand down his long torso. “Too bad he was never going to do anything about it. You mortals get scared off way too easily.”

Nate felt dizzy. He’d had a handful of experiences with the Legends that made him wonder if he was flashing back to a bad trip, but this was definitely the worst one yet. He was almost definitely going to throw up. 

“I know you’re just trying to fuck with me,” he managed to say, pulling himself up to a defiant posture even if he couldn’t match the demon’s stolen height. “And I’m not going to stand here and take it.” He turned, feeling like he was ripping himself out of frozen carbonite, and started down the hall toward the bridge.

“Oh, but you want to,” Ray’s voice called after him, with a laugh that echoed in his head even as he walked away faster.

*****

The clock said it was three forty-five a.m., even though Nate and Ray had once exchanged sleep-deprived words about whether or not it actually meant anything to keep time onboard the time ship (Nate’s argument at the time was that time is meaningless outside of a stable context and therefore there was no way he was setting an alarm for seven in the morning). The point was, everyone had gone to their bunks hours ago, and Nate couldn’t sleep for more than a handful of minutes at a time. He didn’t remember his dreams, but they felt feverish, leaving him soaked in sweat, heart pounding, half crazy. Hoping that this was still part of a dream, that he wasn’t really doing this, he pushed himself out of bed, out of his room and down the hall, moving inexorably toward the holding cell. 

Raymond -- _it isn’t Raymond_ \-- Raymond’s face grinned brightly at him when he turned the corner into the small room that housed the cell. It always felt so good to be on the receiving end of that smile. Now it felt like biting into an apple that had started to ferment on the tree, sweet even though it was rotten. “You know, I was afraid you weren’t going to come back,” he said cheerfully.

“You knew,” Nate said, lowering his eyes from that shining face. “You knew that would work on me. That’s what you do, you know what people want and you just dangle it in front of them until they can’t take it anymore.”

“Sometimes,” the demon said agreeably, with a loose shrug. “With some people I have to threaten to _take something away_. Either way, the cliche is true. Everyone has their price. Even your friend here.”

“You fucking asshole,” Nate snarled, acid rising in his chest. He knew exactly what Neron meant with sickening clarity. Ray was, had been, too good to accept a bribe from the demon. He had only given himself up to save Nate’s life, because Nate couldn’t defend himself in a fight for five fucking minutes when everything was on the line.

“Ooh, did I touch a nerve?” And that was a look that Nate had never seen on Ray’s face before, that he didn’t think anyone ever had. Pure cruelty. “You know, Nathaniel, you must be pretty special. First your old man gets in touch with me, puts his immortal soul on the line just to try to patch things up with you. And then your best bro puts in a hell of an effort trying to fight me off, until I try to take you from him and he just, heh, gives up the ghost.” He spread his hands. “Is that what they call irony? Or, no, it’s the other thing…”

Nate’s senses tripped through time again, hearing the sound of steel hitting glass before he felt the impact against his knuckles, before he registered the impulse to put his steel fist right through the glass of the holding cell, before the words _oh, shit_ echoed through his suddenly empty mind.

The demon laughed and made an easy gesture with his right hand, draped with tendrils of black smoke that appeared out of nowhere, and just like that everything was silent. Nate waited for the alarm to trip, for people to come running, but nothing happened, everything around them was suspended on a bubble of surface tension in reality. It took Nate a moment to remember his own anger but oh, there it was.

“You can’t make me blame myself for this,” he lied as he stepped over the shattered glass, eyes narrowed at the demon’s smug face. “It’s all because of you. You killed my dad. And you -- you took Ray.”

“Oh, Ray is dead,” he said with a note of fake sympathy. “I know, it’s hard to accept. But really, you might be better off this way.” The demon with Ray’s body stepped closer, his bright eyes looking Nate up and down with appreciation in just the way Nate had never admitted that he wanted. 

“I wasn’t lying, you know,” he continued, stepping closer as his voice lowered. Nate would have liked to say that he couldn’t step back, or turn around and run away, because the demon’s magic had him frozen in place, but he was pretty sure that he _could_ move if he wanted to. He just didn’t. “He really did want you. Those thoughts he had about you did _not_ live up to his squeaky-clean reputation.”

“I’m sorry… what?” Nate stammered. This was why he was here, he knew, the lingering doubt that wouldn’t let him sleep.

The demon reached out with one of Ray’s big eloquent hands and took hold of Nate’s face along his jawline, thumb resting under his chin. His index finger stroked the ridge of bone behind Nate’s ear. Nate gulped. 

“He wanted you on your back,” he said in a low, slow tone. “Wanted you facing him so he could watch that pretty face of yours… while you begged for it… while you took it… and when he finally took you over the edge. He thought about what your skin would feel like all hot and sweaty for him when he finally got his hands all over your body.” 

Nate could feel his pulse pounding in his throat, right where Ray’s thumb was stroking him in little circles. “But why didn’t -- why did you say he’d never…?” he trailed off, mouth dry.

The demon shook his head and gave a little sigh, but didn’t step out of Nate’s space. “It’s pretty cheesy, really. Sunshine here had plenty of heartbreak and regret in his so-called love life. What he never had until you came along was a best friend. So, he told himself he’d never let his feelings get in the way of your friendship.” He wrinkled his nose. “The good news is, I’m here now, and I don’t give a shit about any of that. So there’s nothing stopping you from having just what you always wanted.” The demon squeezed Nate’s chin a little as he tilted it up, smirking as he looked into his eyes.

“You aren’t him,” Nate said. “Not even close.”

“Are you sure about that?” He moved his hand from Nate’s jaw to ruffle his hair affectionately, flashing him that sweet Ray Palmer smile, uncannily like the real thing. “Maybe he really is still in here somewhere. Or maybe I can just make you feel like he is. Does it matter, really?”

“Of course it matters!” Nate argued. “I can’t just pretend it’s real because it feels good. Yes… obviously reality really sucks right now, but if I don’t face the facts and move forward from where we are, if I just chose to believe in some fantasy instead, I might as well just be giving up on life, and that’s not what Ra--”

Ray’s lips were just as soft as they looked, and the way he took hold of Nate’s head and pulled him in for the kiss was just as warm and passionate as Nate had imagined. It was so easy to imagine that his speech had somehow gotten through to Ray and brought all of their feelings to the surface, that his best friend was right there in his arms.

“God, Nate,” Ray’s voice sighed as he broke the kiss, brushing back the tousled hair from Nate’s forehead and looking at him with starry eyes. “You have no idea how amazing you are, do you? So beautiful, inside and out. I can’t resist you.” 

Hearing that made Nate feel weak. It was like he’d been on his feet working for days and the demon was offering him a warm, soft bed to lie down on. He wanted so badly to accept that praise, to believe that it was coming from someone who really loved him. He let out a ragged sigh, looking into those eyes and for the moment only seeing Ray.

“Come on, sweetheart, you deserve this. You don’t get _appreciated_ nearly enough. Just relax, let me make you feel good,” said Ray’s gently smiling lips as he stroked firmly down Nate’s spine, until his hand spanned the dimples of his lower back. “I’ll make you forget about everything but how fantastic it feels to just be a good boy for me…”

“Fuck,” Nate sighed, his eyelids feeling heavy and fluttering for a moment. Having those hands on his body felt so good that it took a real concerted effort to come back to himself, to remember who was _using_ those hands. 

He finally managed to take a step back, pulling himself away. “ _No_ ,” he said firmly, to both the demon and himself. “I can’t do this. I can’t do this to Ray.”

The demon’s eyes, that had looked just like Ray’s a moment ago, flashed with a fury that clearly didn’t belong to him. “Raymond Palmer is dead,” he snapped. “You’re going to give up everything you want because it might hurt a dead man’s feelings? You think he cares, where he is? Who’s fucking you is the least of his worries right now, believe me.”

Nate didn’t have a lot of time. He knew from traumatic experience that he couldn’t hold off Neron in a fight for long, but if he could buy himself a second he could disrupt whatever magic was keeping them sealed off from the rest of the ship -- from the rest of reality? -- and summon the help he obviously needed. 

Letting Neron think he was just taken aback by his comment, he pulled together the energy to steel up and just shove him hard with both hands, the sudden motion knocking them both off balance and stumbling across the floor, broken glass glittering around their feet. 

Using what the off-center momentum he had, he lunged toward the shattered door and slammed his hand into the alarm button, and the room erupted into wailing chaos. The demon’s hand was around his neck again, not gently this time, and he could feel his powers fighting to stay activated as he struggled, and then he could hear Sara yelling --

\-- the next thing Nate knew he was waking up in the medbay, with Rory leaning against the wall, eating a raw Pop-Tart and looking down at him.

“Didn’t go so well, did it?” he grunted.

“Shut up,” Nate muttered, closing his eyes again.

*****

For all that Nate had studied over the years about mythology, religion and the power of heroic quest stories across cultures, in the end the story of how with the help of the Legends, Constantine journeyed to Hell and brought back Ray’s soul was wilder than any of them. Too bad no one would ever believe it. He took detailed notes anyway, for posterity.

Ray was going to be okay, and to everyone’s relief, the ritual Constantine used to return his soul to his body didn’t seem to have the same kind of side effects that, say, the Lazarus Pit did. Still, he was exhausted and a little disoriented, and mostly wanted to stay in his bunk and rest. On the second day after he came back from the dead, Nate walked down the corridor to his bunk and knocked on the door. It slid open immediately.

“Nate!” Ray exclaimed when he saw him, his smile bright despite the heavy circles under his eyes. “Come on in, buddy, it’s good to see you.” 

Nate smiled and came in, sitting in the chair across from the bed. Poor Ray barely fit on the standard-issue Waverider mattress. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m… I’m getting there,” said Ray, dropping his head into his palm and rubbing his forehead as thick black locks escaped between his fingers. “Nate… I am so sorry. I can’t stop thinking about what I did, how I hurt you --”

“That wasn’t you, Raymond,” Nate said firmly. “You fought against a demon to try to protect me. Hell, you sacrificed yourself to save me. I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. If I’d been able to stop you --”

“Hey. It’s okay,” Ray said, sitting up again and reaching out to lightly touch Nate’s knee. He felt reassuringly warm and alive. “I’m back now. We won.” He smiled, and Nate shook his head a little.

“Look at you, you’re the one who went through Hell -- literally! -- and here you are trying to comfort me.”

“I know it was hard for you, too,” Ray said softly. “You don’t need to be tough for me.” 

Just those words made Nate melt a little. He looked into Ray’s warm gaze and spoke without thinking. “Hey Raymond… when you were trying to fight off Neron, was he like… in your head? Reading your thoughts?”

Ray frowned. “Boy, it really felt like he was… uh, why? Did he say anything about it? Because you know demons are kind of famous for lying…”

“Well…” Nate winced a little, wishing he had more of a plan for this conversation. “You’re right, it doesn’t matter what he said. But we both just almost died, and we kind of… do that a lot. We honestly have close calls every week or so. So if there’s anything you have been holding back, maybe you should… let it out. Because you never know what’s going to happen.” 

He held eye contact for another long moment, until he felt like he was going to emotionally bleed out if he stayed there any longer. The demon had probably been lying after all, and now poor Ray must have no idea what he was going on about. He stood up, getting ready to leave.

“Wait.” Ray said softly, standing up along with him. They stood about a foot apart in the tiny cabin, just looking at each other. “You’re right. Being your friend is really important to me, and I didn’t want to say anything to risk that. But if this were my last day on Earth, uh, again… I’d want you to know.”

Nate felt a smile spread across his face. “Ray, you beautiful nerd. You should have told me sooner. _At least_ three near-death experiences ago.” 

Ray put a hand on his shoulder and gently pulled him in. His kiss was a little softer than the imposter’s had been, a little slower. Nate melted against him shamelessly, wrapping his arms around his broad back, and it felt like the return of spring.

Eventually they broke the kiss, but Ray still held him close with his head pressed against Ray’s shoulder, stroking his hair.

“Do you want to talk about what happened when I was gone?” he asked quietly, close to Nate’s ear.

“Did anyone tell you anything?” Nate asked tentatively, wondering how much he’d have to explain.

“Mick told me that you were the one who didn’t want to shoot me because you believed that you could still save me,” he replied. “Which wasn’t the greatest call, maybe, but it’s so sweet. Thank you.”

“Aww,” Nate said softly. “Did he tell you anything else?”

“No? Why?” Ray asked, pulling back enough to look at him inquisitively. “Did something else happen?”

“It…” Nate bit his lip. “It wasn’t really anything. Just the usual weird stuff… but if it’s okay, I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it. Not quite yet.”

“Maybe after a couple of dates?” Ray asked with a smile, squeezing his shoulder.

“Sounds good,” he said breezily, patting Ray’s back. Going on dates with him sounded more than just good. He just wished he could stop glancing back at Ray’s eyes, like he was still looking for the abyss hiding just behind them.


End file.
